Episode 30: 2024 Golf Checklist

Shane and Marty kick off 2024 with new year’s resolutions, the importance of a golf game retrospective, goal setting, and how to use stat-tracking apps and PING fitting tools for an unbiased assessment and to ensure that you have the right equipment in your bag.

The guys from ping they’ve kind of shown me how much the equipment matters I just love that I can hit any shot I kind of want we’re going to be able to tell some fun stories about what goes on here to help golfers play better golf welcome

Back to the Ping Proving Grounds podcast I’m Shane bacon that’s Marty Json Marty happy New Year you know what we got to start with right you got a resolution you got you got something you’re GNA you’re going to set your goals and eyes and mind and body at at

2024 ohh Shane I I used to be super big into the resolutions you know like and for me it was always removing something was like a good resolution like one year uh being from Arizona man I love chips and guac I had to give up chips I was

Like I could do it did you do the whole year did you did you do the whole year and not do it I did the entire year oh my goodness you’re so one year I I regret this but I gave up coffee I like

Switched to tea and then I had a I did it literally for the whole year but I I rebounded on that now so I’m not doing that but I think this year uh you know I think it’s going to be maybe because over 40 is uh maybe maybe diet-wise

Getting a little more protein in the diet that’s GNA be my big thing for for 24 how about you what do you got on your list I’m I’m adding an extra leg and lower body workout a week so as you know Marty it’s super easy to do kind of

Beach body workout and go do arms and things like that and I think at times I get a little lazy with going to the gym and focusing solely on lower body like spend 50 minutes or an hour entirely on legs and glutes and things like that so

My goal and I’ve been working with a trainer on kind of getting a a plan for this is I’m just gonna introduce a lot more leg workouts again you said it Marty I just turned 40 you know late last year and these are the types of things we’ve got to be thinking about

And so yeah it’s funny you and I are are focused on the same stuff it’s like diet and and and gym or are basically what you have to have to do when you when you when you flip the calendar over you know yeah exactly but I think it’s good I

Mean we talk we’re going to talk about some golf things here is uh just those habits I think that’s a really big deal is to at the beginning of the year is there’s a good time uh to kind of establish what your habits are going to

Be be for the year knowing that life’s going to come come your way things are going to get in the way but what are those habits you can go back to and and uh yeah I think we I’m feeling good about both of our Shane yeah and you

Know Marty it’s it’s interesting I mean I remember you know doing like early Clubhouse podcast you know 10 you know seven eight years ago and I would always ask players about goals because if you remember Justin Thomas Made It famous where he would post that Notes app at

The end of the year on what his goals were and which one he’s achieved and I think this is actually something that’s pretty important for even everyday golfers I think it’s easy to say I’m gonna spend a little bit more time on the Range this year I’m going to spend a

Little bit more time on my short game but to actually write out goals for your golf game game as much as we’re all obsessed with the game and obsessed with playing what are you actually trying to achieve in 24 you know for me with my golf game Marty I’m gonna just simply

Try to play more tournaments not necessarily you know try to do more whatever I hope that comes with the territory but I’m just gonna try to spend a little bit more time in my calendar if it allows that obviously I’ve got two little kids and I’ve got

Jobs but I’m gonna try to just play if I can play in more golf tournaments get more competitive in that space because I had a good 2023 and terms of tournament golf but as I look back on last year and kind of think about this year I wish I

Would have played more tournaments so that’s kind of one of my big focuses for for next year or for this year yeah no Shane I love that I did that in 23 I recommitted because I had an off year in 22 didn’t play many tournaments at all

For me and I upped I played in all of pretty much all of our SE events in 23 and it worked it forced me to kind of be a little more disciplined in my practice and then you get the feedback playing in the tournament golf I mean you can be

Playing good like you did this year and then you play a big tournament then your NE you look at your calendar your next one’s not for six weeks you know it’s tough it’s tough to keep that uh momentum going I think about that on tour a lot with the pro golfers you know

Some of the guys that have great ends to the season you think about the way Victor obviously played at the end of 23 and into the Ryder Cup and things like that and everybody reacts the same way wow Victor’s going to win a major championship he’s you know he’s

Obviously on the precipice of those types of things and you said it Marty I mean the Gap from the end of that part of their season until when they ramp things back up again in January and then you think about the big events early in the season

And then you think about that first major championship I mean what are you talking six seven months so for those players it’s remembering what I did well and for Victor it was obviously everything I mean he hit the ball great and he puted great but remembering what

Those feels were like and applying them them in your practice and in your planning and then of course you know when you get back to tournament golf in in 24 yeah golf’s such a fragile game Shane you and I both know man you can you can lose those feelings you know you

Think they’re just right there but you know sometimes it’s you know they’re fleeting so that’s what that’s what makes this game so fun though yeah and Marty is is listeners are thinking about a checklist for 2024 what are some of the things that you would push them to

Consider to think about to focus on not just maybe with their planning in their golf game but also in their golf bag yeah I think it’s just a good time to like you know I like to call it like a retrospective you know just take a nice

Good hard uh look at your game and what your goals are right Shane I think that’s a big deal I think back to when we had Preston summer Hayes on the podcast hey Preston what do you need to do to get better he was like well I I

Thought about this for a couple weeks and wrote a 10-page detailed plan I don’t think the everyday golfer needs to go to Preston level I’m not going to Preston level personally uh but hey what a great example example for all of us to do a little look back on your game be

Like hey you know just like you did I want I need to play more tournaments you know what are your goals what what were your strengths what were your weaknesses if you use any type of stats tracking app heck even if you just look at your

Gen Trends over the years right um take a look at some of your stats and do a little assessment on your game get you and if you have somebody that can help you with it even better whether that’s a coach caddy friend you play a lot of golf with what have you

Uh take a look take a look at your game and see where you think I think the the lwh hanging fruit is is it your driving is it your short game uh is it your midiron play and then you could start to start to try to curate an action plan

Maybe some habits from a practice standpoint and then an action plan to take a look at it from an equipment standpoint yeah I think something you mentioned off the top there is so smart I mean obviously there’s so many apps out there in terms of tracking your golf

And I you know I battle with this this Marty at times playing golf is do I want to be on my phone when I’m playing or do I not want to be and obviously I mean for me golf is a bit of a disconnect from the phone it’s so funny I’ll go on

Golf trips sometimes Marty and I’ll I’ll get done I’ll be on the flight home and go I want to post pictures on Instagram and I go I didn’t take many pictures which is a good thing that means I had a great golf trip right I mean if I didn’t

Pull my phone out all the time that typically means I was having a great time on the golf course but I do think considering where we’re at in modern technology leaning on those even if it’s after the round even if you’re you can track on scorecards and plug it in on

The back end Fairways hit greens putts things like that I think it’s so important because Marty you mentioned lwh hanging fruit I’m not sure everybody understands what they’re good at and what they’re bad at right and I think being able to track that in some capacity can help golfers understand

Where they should spend their time practicing where they should spend their time maybe maybe they’ve got a four-year-old driver right maybe they haven’t driven the ball well maybe it’s worth spending a little bit of time getting fit for something new in the bag that might be able to help improve that

Yeah Shane you know we don’t need to spend a ton of too too much time on stats tracking apps but what it does you hit the nail on the head is it helps you get back past your own personal bias of what you think is your strength or

Weakness in your game I I was just uh recently at a a big conference talking to some of the top teachers uh and one of them said hey I bring my players on the course because you can identify the lwh hand fruit to help them get better almost immediately they might come they

Might tell you oh my driving’s you know not that good then you get on the course they actually drive it okay they Mi they’re high handicap or they miss a ton of greens they really struggle with the chipping but maybe they’re blanking that out you know they they there’s that bias

In there to give you that true assessment that’s really where the Stats come in you don’t need to rely a 100% on them but use them as kind of a piece of the puzzle to help identify where you need help and then it’s a and then it’s

Um you know Shane it’s maybe take a holistic view of your golf game do you need to work on some Fitness stuff some speed stuff uh some practice habits and set some realistic goals for yourself for the year right I think that’s the thing is like hey think life’s going to

Come at me family kids job travel what have you what are some realistic things I can do can I get a little putting mat in my house and and and do some block practice for five or 10 minutes while I’m watching uh watching a basketball in the winter right these are those tiny

Things that add up a lot over time and then what can we do from an equipment standpoint where am I where’s the low hanging fruit from a equipment performance standpoint yeah like can you hit the ball longer I mean that’s a that’s a simple fix I mean I I just was

Messing around with the max 10K I love it I love the look of it um I know we’re going to chat more and more about the new driver in the coming weeks but just simply adding a new driver in the bag can help you pick up those five or 10

Yards that maybe you’ve lost or that you’d love to to improve in terms of what you’re trying to do I mean these are simple fixes for the golf bag to help somebody fill a slight hole that’s maybe there’s something they’ve been thinking about yeah absolutely Shane I

Try to take a look at from an equipment standpoint to help the help golfers out there have a little checklist of what things to look at number one you you highlighted it first the driver are you leaving distance on the table through the driver fitting and performance so

The fitting aspect is let’s make sure you have the optimal launch and spin and if you have not been on a launch monitor you haven’t been through uh our co-pilot tool or understand our our chart we have which is angle of attack ball speed what are the perfect launch conditions so

Many golfers are Misfit by not having the right launch and spin so there’s the the fitting side of the driver then there’s the performance side which is making sure you we have the latest technology in our 430 family for example to give you that forgiveness around the face to give you

That consistency to give you that inertia to give you all the ball speed that comes with everything and marry those two things up together the driver is the most important Club at least once a year this a perfect time of year before the season get in get your launch

Numbers and make sure your driver is optimized for launch and spin Marty you mentioned the weather you mentioned you know in a lot of the areas of the country it’s cold you’re not playing a whole bunch of golf and you mentioned ping co-pilot and this is my reminder to

Everybody out there spend a little bit of time with the apps that ping and Marty have created because it’s such an easy fix you talk about driving you talk about gapping I know we’ve SP a lot of time in terms of gapping but that gapping app if you don’t understand

Where this again these are simple fixes Marty I mean this isn’t going out and having to change your swing or spend hours on the Range working on path and takeaway and things like that this is simply am I filling the gaps the right way with the right clubs do I have a

Huge hole at 120 that I don’t I don’t realize Marty it’s amazing how many buddies I’ll talk to of mine that you know we’ll be playing a scramble or we’ll be out playing beste ball or something like that and they like ah you know I don’t want to hit driver here I

Don’t really have anything in the 120 range and my mind’s blown you know I’m like this is a scoring opportunity you’ve got to have that dialed and I love I mean one of my favorite things at ping is that gapping app because it just helps it helps an issue that a lot of

Golfers have yeah Shane I totally agree so that the gapping app is a great tool to lean on our our uh tons of our uh Fitters out there are using it if you want to find a fitter that’s using it you go to you go to our find a fitter

Tool on ping.com and you can filter by uh an account that has and is using co-pilot and go see them and ask to get on the gapping app because even if you’re not let’s say you you you got a new setup I 230s or g430 irons in you

Know the last year or two there’s still it’s still worthwhile going through the gapping app even if you’re not going to rep you know you’re not in the market for new irons to look at the edges of your bag like you were talking about Shane the wedges do you have the right

Gapping in your wedges number one and then maybe you’re playing down to a four iron or a five iron you’re struggling with that club what’s the right replacement for that can you take a look at just you know a hybrid or high lofted Fairway Wood Go On there get on that

Gapping app I think that’s the next from the driver driver’s number one make sure you’re optimized for launch and spin for your angle of attack number two would be looking at your set configuration are you are you comfortable with where what is the longest iron in your bag number

One and on the other end of the bag like you were talking about Shane you got to make let’s make sure those those wedges are scoring clubs and you have them gapped appropriately that’s such a big deal yeah I mean we’ve had plenty of guests on that have talked a little bit

About this or around this idea of not just the wedges but I I mean I love what you mentioned with the high lofted Fairway Woods you know I’ve talked so much about my love for my seven wood and this becoming so popular I also you know I always think about this through the

Eyes and the lenses of my buddies that play golf and that are kind of all over the board in terms of handicapping but there’s so many of my friends that have a club in their bag that either they rarely use if ever right and a lot of

The time that’ll be a three-wood and so you have a club in your bag and again as we’re talking about kind of that checklist for the new year checklist for 2024 what can I do when I’m not you know trying to find answers in the dirt one

Of those things is is there a club in your bag that’s a cobweb club right you’re not using it enough to you know be one of 14 because 14 is in theory a pretty small number it’s just making sure how often you pulling it out I do

This thing every year Marty where my my golf shirts I FL at the start of the year flip the hangers the other way and by the end of the year if there’s hangers that are still facing the wrong way those shirts get donated obviously I’m not wearing those shirts right the

Same thing can be done with your golf clubs are you using golf clubs enough to you know mandate a spot in the bag and if not really consider some other options yeah that’s a great Point Shane that’s again where it’s hard to kind of know that from memory like if you have

Uh Aros for example you can look and see how much how much hit the three-wood and one of the fun things we’ve talked about a little bit here before Shane is that how the three-wood is used is very different for all players out there for example me and you we we hit our

Three-wood probably 80 eight out of 10 times off the T right for the golfer out there that drives it 200 yards they’re the opposite they hit it eight out of 10 times off the ground so that’s why you know a three-wood might not be the right

Club for that golf for it might be a might be a fivewood might be like kind of a you know we make a fourwood out of a five wood fivewood put a fivewood in the uh in the big minus or five sft version fivewood something that’s very

Easy to hit off the ground but if you’re a better player with more speed you want to be optimizing that three-wood off the te so that’s cobweb Club I think is a really good way to to frame it and take a look at it can you replace it with

Something that’s going to be more useful yeah if you this is just my PSA here if you hate a club in your bag flip it out of the bag like there’s no reason to have a long iron that you can’t hit and you don’t love that you’ve got to strike

Perfectly to hit the number that you kind of have written down in your yardage book if you will for what that number carries think about a hybrid think about a lofted fairway wood like think about these other options there’s so many options across the board these days with Crossovers and with lofted

Fairway Woods becoming more popular you don’t have to have the four iron in your bag if you don’t feel comfortable hitting that I love my four iron there’s so many people out there that don’t there’s no reason to have clubs in your bag that aren’t helping your game if

They’re hurting your game take them out and get a little bit more creative with the bag yeah Shane I think one of the big things to make sure the be the better players listen to this is that hybrids no longer go go left right we we don’t we don’t have that issue

Necessarily and so don’t be afraid of that give it if if you if you wiped them out forever five years ago you first tried hybrids they hooked or 10 years ago uh We’ve solved that problem we got wa waen Neeman playing a five hybrid and

And uh and stuffing it out there we got so um it give yourself permission that we can always go flatter with them to get them to fly straight so definitely take a look at cobweb clubs set composition between your driver and your longest iron that’s a really good area

To focus and then Shane I would say after that after those two pieces would be looking at your wedges and making sure if you’re not spinning it around the greens if you’re hitting chip shots pit shots ball sliding up the face you’re not you don’t have that

Capability when you have a really good lie uh to hit that low spinner if that’s something that you want to do in your Technique that’d be the next place to look make sure you’re starting the year off with some fresh wedges and the chip chipper obviously something to think

About as well I mean that’s a big part of of this whole you talked about composition of the golf bag right absolutely and I think that’s where it comes to the honest assessment of of your game chain is that um are you going to spend the time to improve in a

Certain area like let’s say you love hitting for iron right are you gonna work on your speed your Technique everything to be able to flush that for iron and get that ball up in the air that’s a tough challenge similarly when it comes to chipping uh if you’re a

Golfer out there that’s struggled with chipping off of tight lies and making managing your low point and being able to have that delivery so you can nip it get the ball in the air manage the low point if that’s a struggle for you take a look at the chipper because that has

Been a savior for a lot of golfers out there we we have better players around the office that use the chipper I have played with them and it is very impressive what they can do around the green so give that an honest assessment and an honest look yeah Marty I I just

Uh lately last year I wrapped up a golf trip one of my last golf trips of 2023 and my buddy Andrew who is I think he’s a two handicap has the chipper in the bag now he’s never I’ll tell you this Marty he’s a guy that it’s either full

Mass of flop shot or chipper like there’s no you know the the simple flat face 56 degree pit shot is not something he’s comfortable hitting and so what he’s learned is he putt a lot of those shots but a lot of the time the putter

Is just not the the right call and you could go seven iron if you feel comfortable with it but what I love about the chipper technology is it’s basically like using your putting stroke toally and getting a little bit of that Loft and roll out that takes that

Forcible speed out of the shot you know you stand over a putt it’s it’s grainy it’s it’s kind of down in a swell and you’re up a hill you just feel like you got to mash that and so many times Marty I see guys putted over the green right

Because they’re thinking they got to hit it so hard I love the chipper because it takes a little bit of that I’ve got to hit it hard out of their hands yeah totally and I think you nailed what makes it really easy for golfers like him to uh adapt to the chipper is

Because we designed it so you can pretty much use a putting stroke it’s super heavy head weight relative to chipping with your eight iron or what have you pitching wedge super heavy head weight shorter and length and very upright so has all those characteristics of a Putter and Shane what’s funny about this

Is the the engineer here that design the chipper you know we talked a lot about solving problems for yourself he is exactly the same he he is he’s like a scratch two handicap he floats right in that range he’s awesome at flop shots flop shots but he struggled with the

Basic chip and now he’s either chipper or Flop shot in absolutely magic around the greens are we talk this the same guy does my friend Andrew work p and I don’t know it is has he got like a shadow job I’m gonna have to ask him about it um

Marty you mentioned mentioned putty and a buddy of mine Mike just went through through um iing and he was extremely complimentary about it you know you’re talking about getting yourself set up for 2024 and your golf game in the winter iing is something you can obviously do in your basement at home

Anywhere like that to make sure you’re using the right putter for your game and again assessing maybe what’s not working for you as you get set for the new golf year yeah when it comes to the putter Shan I always always again look at like the lwh hanging fruit the lowest hanging

Fruit is to make sure sure you’re in a putter that has the right tow hang or balance right we talked about this with uh Sasha McKenzie when he was on talking about the biomechanics of why that is super important so that I would say is the lwh hanging fruit from a putter

Stpoint do you have a Miss tendency again it might be hard to remember that if you’re not tracking stats on it but if you do have a Miss tendency we see a lot of golfer Shan tons that are playing deep CG mallets heel shafted missing tons of putts to the right and the

Biomechanics of this absolutely make sense right the de very deep CA CG with very heel shafted you you have to torque the putter a lot open on the backstroke and you can’t catch up and the face is delivered open to the past so going back

To the lwh hanging fruit get on ey ping get on blast go find a fitter that has a uh maybe a quintic system and understand how much you rotate the face in the forward stroke and if you don’t rotate it very much like on iing if you rotate

It two and a half degrees or less you’ll probably be be better in a more face balance putter if you have a lot of rotation seven and a half degrees or more you’ll probably better be better with a strong Arc or a very toe down

Putter or you might be kind of in the middle so that I would say is the the checklist item on putting make sure you’re in the right stroke type or tow hang of putter Marty can you let people know if they’ve never gone through iing what to expect like what to expect when

The package arrives at home at their home yeah Absolut absolutely yeah so that for that that uh plld custom program uh we have a a a mode of eying that guides you through hitting uh putts and you can do it right on your carpet in your house so nice flat surface it’s

Where I did it you’re going to do putts that are about a 10-footer or it doesn’t have to be perfectly 10 feet could be eight to 15 somewhere in that range but you’re we’re going to cue you to try to have an INT attention to repeat your

Stroke as if you need to make that 10- foot straight putt on the golf course and in doing so the sensors in the phone or iPod itself are super duper accurate they’re built for playing video games and we can measure five key characteristics about your putting stroke that you cannot see with the

Naked eye and I think that is the most important part you can’t see Tempo time of backstroke time of forward stroke with the naked eye you can’t see face rotation you can see path pretty good with the naked eye but not face rotation and that’s what we’re talking about how

Much does the putter rotate on the backstroke rotate on the forward stroke we get a face angle delivery which is ultimately that’s King we talked about that with sasho as well like face angle is the most important thing and and we can factor that into the fitting process

As well as your setup uh shaft lean how much you lean the shaft will influence the loft your Putter and the LI angle Shane so iing is a it’s a you know we can we’re using the cool sensors in the phone but we’re doing a lot of things on the back end

Algorithmically uh that can really help your your putting stroke you can’t see with a naked eye I think the key to getting Fit For A putter the key point to hear here is they can ping can help you have a putter fit your Stroke versus you having to change the stroke to make

Sense with the putter you’re using and I think that’s so important because there are a million different putting Strokes out there I mean you go to the putting green at a PJ Tour event or an LPGA Tour event you’re going to see 30 different looking Strokes right I mean there’s

Going to be so many different you know inside out and things like that but those players have a putter fit to exactly their stroke and that is what iing can do for people listening is it can fit a putter for you versus you having a kind of you know I got to lean

My hands a little bit more forward or let’s not forward press like take all of your guess out of it and allow the technology to do that for you I just think that’s so important yeah Shane I you that was a really good uh really well put on how the tour players you

Know another way to think about iping is it’s the tour players have been able to have trial and error they have all the putters out there in the putting green they can try them see what milon Putters out there it’s so great yeah so we fit

Them with iping but you know the the algorithms that are baked in there work you know in reverse to over the history of time right you have you have players who rotate the putter a lot using toe down Putters you have players that don’t rotate the the putter a lot using face

Balance Putters what iping does it it helps eliminate all that trial and error so that we can kind of apply the science and apply all that empirical observation uh and again I think the key is things you can’t see with the naked eye and make sure things are not

Fighting your stroke I think you you frame that very very well all right Marty so we’ve hit driver we’ve got people dialed on their gaping in their wedges putting is now they’re GNA everybody here listening is going order ey ping and get fit and they’re going to

Make every Putt in 2024 what about the golf ball what can people do in terms of thinking about the golf ball they’re playing and making sure that’s right for their golf game yeah I view the golf ball Shen as like the glue that puts it all together all these components the

Ball is the cherry on top and it it uh it ties driver performance iron performance greenside spin feeling sound off the putter how that Ball’s going to fly through the air do you need a ball that’s better in the wind or not that is the kind of the final Fe piece of the

Puzzle and I think around the first of the year is the perfect time to make sure you’re in the right golf ball right because it’s like which ball am I going to use for the season of course you can and should as new golf balls come out

Take a look at this but I think going through balic which is our golf ball Finning solution and software which you can do with launch monitor data or with we’ll talk a little bit about that about once a season maybe twice a season is the perfect Cadence to make sure that

Your clubs and golf ball how you want to perform on the golf course uh is all marrying together and in understanding golf balls is is tough there’s so many on the market they have such a diversity in how they perform they can change one model can change a lot from year to year

So you can’t you can’t really just say I’ve always played this ball play the newest version because sometimes they can change quite a bit and so we designed balami to help solve these problems and going through this going through balami around the first year is

The perfect time to do it do you Marty you know there’s so many options available with a lot of this technology at ping do you go through this stuff relatively consistent I mean are you check on the ball for your own golf game I mean you’re such a great player I mean

You know we talked about your accolades but are these things you’re kind of checking in on a couple times a year once a year or so yeah no absolutely Shane I do and I I follow our same process uh you know you would if you were a mini tour player or or something

I schedule a fitting okay in the off season right kind of like the summer haze talked about like hey we schedule a fitting and come in come in and I kind of have to do that because I’m so close to everything I and when I schedule a fitting I tell

Uh Brad Mard or one of our Master Fitters here treat me as if I’m I’m I’m just a tournament golfer right and put me through all the tools the protocols x-ray my equipment my game my launch conditions so absolutely we’re pulling up our launch efficiency tool which is

One of my favorite in the driver to make sure you’re optimized from a launch and spin standpoint we’re looking at the latest Copa balls and is there a new option for me from balic because I spin my driver a little bit more than our optimal uh says so I use golf ball to

Give me net 300 less spin in terms of driverf flight right I’m always using the gapping app and that that is awesome to see if there’s another option there especially my long irons um and then iping I go on iping at least a couple times a year to see if anything’s

Changed in my stroke uh because your stroke can evolve uh a little bit over time and make sure I’m not making any compensation so 100% And I I I schedule that to make sure it’s kind of like a blocked intentional thing on my calendar what about stat tracking how do you go

About your stat tracking because I know you’re someone that pays a lot of attention to those types of things yeah so I use I I’m kind of in the research mode so I use a bunch of different stat tracking apps I use uh Aros quite a bit

For stat tracking uh but I experiment with a bunch of others golf metrics really cool has some nice Strokes gain features in there uh stack putting is how I do my putting uh stats tracking now because it gives the most granular insights for misses and I’m pretty

Hardcore kind of aim pointer when I’m out there kind of always kind of figuring out figuring out if I’m at a 1% 2% 3% slope so that gives me the most grain insights uh from a putting standpoint do you think people that are listening to this podcast are going to

Have their best golfing year ever I just feel like the advice you’ve given my goodness I mean how do you not have a great 24 you know yeah it they they are Shane I would say the big things are take a take a look at driver take a look

At set configuration make sure if if your if your wedges are degrading a little bit and grooves face friction spin generation take a look at that make sure you’re in the right stroke type of putter uh consider a stats tracking solution so you get those true non-bias

Insights to your game set up some good golf habits and have an awesome year and I got one last thing we haven’t mentioned but I also see this a lot you mentioned the groove faces and I think that is something people leave on The Cutting Room floor way too often they

Don’t upgrade wedges they should be upgrading wedges in 24 especially with ping new wedges are meant but grips pay attention to your grips if the grips are worn you’ve had them for a couple years and you play you know relatively consistent golf you play a couple times

A month you leave the club in the trunk or whatever the case may be a clean them but B consider whatever it is a couple hundred bucks to get your grips regripped because you you mentioned the golf ball being such a such an important part of the configuration you know of

The uh of the golf club and the golfer I mean the grips are the tires right I mean you don’t want bald tires driving in the rain like you want good grips yeah fresh grips is a super big deal especially if you if you got you’re not

Going to look at replacing your irons or maybe your driver’s pretty dialed put fresh grips on there is a big one Shane I think a couple other things for folks to check especially if you swap shafts let’s say you swap shafts with a buddy and your driver Shaft or something check

Your swing weights okay go to whether you have a swing weight scale at home your local shop your your golf course check your swing weights a lot of times there a very basic one if you’re struggling with one club going left or right or lowpoint control check your

Swing weights if you if you’ve swapped anything out on on the metalwood stand Point another one Shane to throw in there is is is a fresh bag you know I think that provides a really good kind of uh uh kind of mental uh you know freshness to the year

Get your bag get all your your your teas your uh little train make sure you got a spot for your little training AIDS whatever you carry with you in your bag that can be a big deal too to get your ear started off fresh yeah I I just

Played golf a couple weeks ago and uh caddy walked to the first tea and he goes man I I love when I see a hoofer and I go I know and he goes it’s just they’re just the best I said I know they’re they’re the best pack I mean I

Had them when I was a junior golfer I’ve had them through college and I’ve got one now and I love it so yeah I think the golf bag is a is a great call as well you know what Marty I went the kind of single carry bag for a bit but the

Stand is unbeatable it just it might listen it might be eight oun heavier whatever the case may be than an onand bag but I will carry the ounces more so that my I I don’t love this laying it down and picking it up I’m just I become

A stand guy even when I’m carrying myself same I like just getting the just a little bit easier to get the clubs out of the bag to switch clubs if you’re between clubs win picks up man it’s so much easier to throw throw your eight back in there totally totally agree with

You grab your seven well Marty happy New Year man super pump for 2024 excited for all the content on this platform and what we’re going to be doing elsewhere it’s going to be a great year for us going to be a great year for the golf

World hopefully and going to be a great year for the listeners because with all this advice and some of the guests we have upcoming uh I think it’s going to be you know I will say this all of the feedback I’ve got Marty I know you’re

Feel the same way about the podcast you know we’re eight nine months into doing this podcast it’s been super fun to do but the feedback from you guys listening has been awesome so we always appreciate the messages and the tweets and the and the you know the things you guys said on

Instagram it’s great to hear from you and we appreciate you guys listening because it’s been a lot of fun to do so far yeah Shane I totally agree I’ve got some awesome feedback hopefully golfers are just are my goal with this Shane is to help golfers get better play better

Golf you know what I mean um so yeah hopefully everyone got a little uh you know take a couple of those things from our checklist or do them all would be awesome uh and get your game Dial Shane one thing we did want to mention is for the ball fitting standpoint listeners go

To ball fitting. comom we have a discount code 50% off for the listeners Proving Grounds enter the code Proving Grounds capital P capital G and get 50% off your ball fitting enjoy it Marty that hold on that’s half I’m almost I’m almost sure that’s half off exactly unbelievable 50% off Proving Grounds

Capital P capital G you guys have a great New Year set those goals write down the notes focus on the golf bag and play golf great we’re excited to see it this is the Ping proven grounds podcast